Gilmore's
by ExellentlyEllen
Summary: Rory Gimore is a successful writer and newly minted columnist. These are her musings...
1. Gilmore's Very First

**Gilmore's very first**

Column that is. Don't get any weird ideas or anything. This won't be earth shattering. Hell, I'd settle for halfway decent. Being offered an editorial is a big deal. Huge, huge deal. And I can only hope that the powers-that-be made the right choice by handing me this gig.

I don't know if I'm very witty. And if there's one thing most successful columns have in common, it's their wittiness-factor. You'll just have to trust me on that, I did the research.

For those of you out there who don't know who I am, or what it is exactly that I did to get this cushy job, I'll give you a quick 411.

I'm a small town girl with big dreams. For as long as I can remember, I've been dreaming of one thing: being a journalist. I started planning the steps it would take to get me there before I even knew how to write. Really, my first plans involved crude crayon-drawn books and buildings to represent college and a stick-figure me interviewing another – unnamed but important – stick figure.

I would become the next Christiane Amanpour and I'd take the world by storm.

When I actually learned how to read and write, the lists became longer and more concrete. Gilmore's 8 steps to becoming the world's greatest reporter.

Step 1: get good grades in school.  
Step 2: Use said good grades to get into private school  
Step 3: Join school newspaper  
Step 4: Graduate top of the class  
Step 5: Start Harvard  
Step 6: Graduate with honors from Harvard  
Step 7: Get offered amazing job  
Step 8: Write the best and most insightful articles ever as a foreign correspondent

When I see it all spelled out like this, it all seems very simple. Life however, doesn't abide by lists and steps no matter how well planned and detailed they are.

Sure, steps 1 and 2 went off without a hitch. I had very good grades and when I was 16 I transferred from my cozy-but-small-town high school to a fancy Connecticut private school.

The thing about those cozy, small town high schools is this: most of the students are the typical kind, mostly just going to get it over with and move on to the next chapter. Every once in a while you get those over-achiever types who don't really fit in with the rest. Those students might transfer out before high school is over, or they end up over classing most other students by sheer willpower if not actual brains.

I'll allow you to take an educated guess as to which category young me belonged to.

On the other hand, the thing about elite private schools is this: EVERYBODY's an over-achiever. There's generally no coasting through the experience just to get to the other end. Excellence is required at every turn, by everyone.

So while steps 1 and 2 were more or less a piece of cake, the rest didn't come nearly as easy. There was a paper at our school, run by the most uptight girl anybody has ever met anywhere. Nicknames like Mussolini were common and well-used. Not that she cared. For some reason she also took an instant disliking to me. Which in turn had a negative effect on my tenure at the paper. It took my quite a lot longer to prove myself as a writer than I would have liked. But in the end, step 3 was a success and it felt all the better because I had to work for it.

Step 4 was pretty much the same. I got my first D, ever. Which resulted in me studying my butt off and missing an exam because I was late. A little tip for all you high schoolers out there: If you're ever hit by a deer (you read it right, the deer hit ME) and are consequentially late for an exam, they don't accept that as a valid excuse.

In the end, even step 4 succumbed to my tenacity and willpower. I was high school valedictorian with no less than 3 acceptance letters to Ivy League.

Step 5 is where I really deviated from the Plan (It's a capital P). Devious tricks to get me to like Yale aside, I actually did end up a Bulldog. So, while it wasn't the originally dreamed Harvard, I did get my Ivy League dream.

It took me a little longer to finally reach step 6. A late bout of teenage rebellion caused me to quit school for a while. When I look back on my time away from school, living in my grandparents pool house and organizing parties for the DAR, I'm not entirely happy with myself. I do believe that at the time, it was good for me to re-prioritize and evaluate my life, I just wasted a lot more time than was really necessary. And almost ruined my relationship with my mother over it.

An old friend came along at just the right time with the right amount of kick in the butt. I graduated with my fellow students on time (thank god for summer classes) and with high marks.

Which leads us to step 7. While I did a lot of interviews at the end of my scholastic career, jobs just don't present themselves on a silver platter. I, like probably many among you readers, got my fair share of rejections. Fancy education be damned.

Luckily somebody took pity on me and decided to give me a chance. Before I knew it, I'd spent 1,5 years on a bus with 35 other reporters, reporting on the same thing every night. I won't lie, I loved the fact that I got to write every day and I'm still enormously thankful to my editor at that time for giving me a chance. But the constant repetition and the endless bus rides get to you after a while. So when the chance for something else popped up, I took it.

That's how a small town girl with plans and dreams ended up writing editorials for a big paper. As for step 8. Well, like I said before, dreams change and new experiences lead to new goals. Do I still want to be the best writer ever? Sure, and I'll strive towards that every day and with every word I write on paper.

But while six year old me dreamed to reach the stars, 25 year old me is much happier down here, on earth.

All I'm really trying to say is: Who really cares if I'm witty, I still got the job.


	2. Gilmore's Fairy Tales

**Gilmore's fairy tales**

Everyone deserves a fairy tale. At least, that's what society has been indoctrinating us with since the moment fairy tales came into existence. Never mind that the first tales of the kind were bloody warnings of what happens when people don't behave in a way that is socially acceptable.

Case in point: Little Red Riding Hood was not at first a tale about a sweet little girl's victory over the big bad wolf. It was a warning to little girls everywhere that disobeying your mother would lead to a bloody and horrifying end.

Need another one?

Rapunzel was actually the story of a Roman girl who was locked up by her father in a tower because he did not want her to marry. She converted to Christianity and got decapitated by her father because of it.

Still not convinced?

The tale of Snow white was believed to be based on the real live 16th century Bavarian woman called Margarete von Waldeck. Who's brother dispatched small children to work in a copper mine. She was sent away by her stepmother because of her beauty. In her exile, she had a steaming affair with Prince Philip II of Spain, and was repeatedly poisoned by the King of Spain because he opposed the relationship.

Over the centuries these stories got cleaned up, fit to be told to little children everywhere as a way to instill a sort of moral compass. Snow White ends up with her prince because she was a good person, helping out little old men and being humble. While baking delicious apple pies.

Moral of the stories? Never eat apples given to you by scary old women, grow your hair out so somebody can use it as a rope and never stray off the beaten path. Good triumphs over evil, there's always a happily ever after, and your knight-in-shining-armor is just around the corner.

Right? Right!

Or is it? How can we, females of modern society still fall for that kind of happily ever after? After decades of fighting for same rights and (admittedly only marginally) succeeding, we still fall asleep to the sounds of girls waiting around to be saved by a guy. We still fantasize about that illustrious 'one' who'll suddenly turn the corner and make birds sing and rainbows appear.

Success is directly linked to the effort one puts into it. It's not about waiting around for a man to aide and provide. At least not anymore.

I love the world of Austin as much as the next bibliophile but the 19th century has long since passed. Where are the tales about girls making their own way? Where are the self-assisting heroines who are smart enough not to bite the apple, instead of needing a man to kiss it all better? Where are the modern day bedtime stories that give girls everywhere a sense of direction other than sitting around. Baking pie.

Now, you might think I'm a pessimist. I'm not. Do I believe in true love? Yes. Do I believe in 'the one'? No. And I'll tell you why. I've loved in my (albeit relatively short) life. Not once. Not twice. But three times. Three loves, who I'll consider to be the loves of my life, at that time.

When I was a moony-eyed 16 year old, I fell in love with the quintessential boy-next-door. He was sweet, he made me laugh. And being with him taught me a lot of things. Like, how to kiss. How to have an actual conversation with a boy. How to balance all aspects of my teenage life. The relationship opened up a new world for me, and I'll forever be grateful of that first love.

That being said, when trying to rekindle the relationship some years later, it didn't work. The me at 19 did not need the same things as 16 year old me did. And while it was a heartbreaking realization at the time, I now take it for what it should be, a lesson.

At 18, the nice and sweet wasn't working anymore. I went through what most people would describe as 'my bad-boy' phase. Facing so many questions in regards to school and the future, it was refreshing to spend some time with somebody who really didn't care about all of that. The here-and-now perspective was so different from my own pro-con-list driven personality, it shouldn't have worked. But it did, at least for a while. Because while the conversations about literature and music were fulfilling for a time, I'm a future girl at heart. Where will I study, what will I major in, where do I see myself in 1,5,10 years?

I did learn some things from my second love as well. Like, you can't deny attraction, no matter how much you try. And having a lot of similarities doesn't matter when your core personalities are so different. He taught me that sometimes love just isn't enough to get somebody to stay. And most of all, he taught me that I have the right to my own opinion, regardless of what others might think.

It was turbulent and it was wild and it was painful but it happened, and I'd never wish to forget my second love, or the boy that represented it.

And then we end up at the last of my youth loves. In a desperate attempt to get over my heartbreak (second time with boy 1) I tried to convince myself that I wasn't a relationship girl. That I could handle a no-strings fling with somebody. And by picking the one guy I knew would never be interested in a relationship, I figured I couldn't go wrong.

I was in love before I even realized it, and while he wasn't a relationship kind of guy, he fell as well. I did things I'm not proud of at that time in my life. Most of them guided by late-blooming teenage rebellion and (admittedly) some alcohol. I hit my very own existential crisis. What good are those pro-con-lists when one comment by an insignificant person can make every plan you made come tumble down.

Despite bad decisions and a (minor) felony, I did learn from my last love as well. He was a rebel in his own way and by being that, he got me to loosen up as well. I was more spontaneous. I learned how to co-exist with somebody other than my forever-roommate. I learned a new way to handle living under a societal microscope. I learned to fight for something.

I had 3 loves. I lost them all. But I'm still hopeful for what comes next in my life. Not because I'm going to sit here and wait for 'him' to walk into my life. But because I'm going to live it, be my own woman, take my own paths. And in doing so, I'm sure there will be somebody along the horizon who will take me for who I am now and walk alongside me for the next phase in my life. I don't need a man to rescue me.

All I'm really trying to say here is: we need more Sex and The City.


End file.
